Week 37: Boy or Girl?

We don’t know and we don’t want to know until we see a penis or lack thereof. The act of not knowing, while exciting, also means that Sarah has to endure predictions from everyone who comes into contact with her…

By Jeff Ruby

Published June 19, 2012

Boy or Girl? We don’t know and we don’t want to know until we see a penis or lack thereof. The act of not knowing, while exciting, also means that Sarah has to endure predictions from everyone who comes into contact with her.

“It’s a boy, because you’re carrying it high and out,” said the Laotian guy at the Asian Market.

“It’s a girl, because your rear end is rounder than usual,” said Hannah’s teacher, a social worker who has never said anything unkind to anyone, ever.

A yenta at the Kosher bakery agreed that it’s a boy. Then the other yentas came out of the kitchen to tell stories about their pregnancies. (“You think this is hot! I gave birth in August. That was hot!”)

“It’s definitely a boy,” said the Indian woman behind the counter at the gas station at Foster and Broadway. “I’ve had four boys, and I know.”

Just the bottle of water, please, Sarah responded.

The baby dropped recently and the Laotian at the Asian market said it was a girl. “Because you’re carrying it low.”

Hannah wants a girl but believes it will be a boy. Max wants a boy but is resigned to the fact that it is a girl in there. The dog wants to roll around in more catshit. “Put a carrot between your legs,” Sarah’s dad tells her. “Maybe the baby will come out for the carrot.”

Online, things aren’t much clearer. I took a quiz on babyzone.com and was told: “It could be a boy!” Way to take a stand there, babyzone.com. Parenting.com’s Chinese gender predictor says, definitively, that the baby will be a girl. And Chinese. Childbirth.org, after peppering me with detailed questions about which direction my wife’s pillow points and her feelings about orange juice, declared: You have a 27% chance of having a boy. And you have a 72% chance of having a girl. I appreciate the specificity, but the missing 1 percent there is ominous. What are you trying to tell me, childbirth.org? Is there a one percent chance we are having a hermaphrodite? A vampire? A loaf of pumpernickel? Tell me, dammit!